Notes From the Margins…

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Anyone but Ukip

Today Nigel Farage’s ‘people’s army’ will set off down to the polling stations today to keep its appointment with destiny. This is one appointment that destiny would really be well-advised not to get out of bed for, because we have seen a great deal of Ukip these last few weeks, and it hasn’t been a pretty sight.

Just look back at some of the golden moments that Farage’s Army has provided us with these last few weeks. There was the candidate who told Lenny Henry to go off and ’emigrate to a black country.’ There was the Daily Mirror investigation which found that Amber Valley candidate Ken Chapman had been twittering about ‘Pakis’ and suggesting that Islam should be ‘wiped out’.

There was the Ukip election leaflet in Wales featuring a photograph of military cemeteries comparing Ukip’s anti-immigration policy to those who ‘fought and died to keep Britain free from foreign invasion.’ There was Joseph Quirk, UKIP candidate for Boldon Colliery Ward on South Tyneside Council, sharing material that Jewish bankers financed Hitler, Soviet Communism, 9/11 and Israel and warning ‘brain deficient doubters out there’ that I would personally cull the lot of you. You are an absolute disgrace to democracy AND the human race!!!”

Sweet. Meanwhile another Cambridgeshire Ukip councillor has written of “The War On Men: 10 Ways Masculinity is Under Attack’ and wants cossacks to whip women in the streets, just as they did to Pussy Riot.

And don’t forget the great con-man himself; Nigel Farage the man-who-loves-a-pint-just-like-you-or- me, telling the nation in his car crash LBC interview it’s ok not to want Romanians living next door, because in the end they are Romanians, not Germans, and you know the difference right?

Of course none of this constitutes bigotry, racism, misogyny, or homophobia. Those are just terms invented by the ‘politically correct elite’ and the ‘Westminster establishment’ to stifle free speech and voice of the common man.

And isn’t it refreshing to hear some simple plain-speaking white folk just speaking their minds for a change, after listening to all those smarmy, silk-tied politicians offering their polished, focus-group soundbites to the cameras? Never mind that what so many of them have to say is as ugly as they are.

Yep, you can’t say it hasn’t been a laff. Farage has said that every party has its fruitcakes, which is true. But the fact that so many bigots, racists, homophobes and fascists with so many troglodyte views have made Ukip their political home ought to tell us a great deal about the nature of Farage’s ‘insurgency.’

Because in the end Ukip isn’t very funny at all. It’s a party that represents in concentrated and coagulated form the vilest and most horrendous attitudes and ideas that British society has to offer – the rancid prejudices, phobias and fantasies emanating from the bottom drawer of Middle England, Jim Davidson-land, from the dank sub-conscious of the unreconstructed white middle-aged male still dreaming nostalgically of a white Christmas and a hovis loaf.

So the fact that that Ukip is still apparently in first place in the European election polls despite the constant flow of ‘gaffes’ of the last month is really quite disturbing. Some pundits have attributed Ukip’s continued popularity to a visceral desire to give the political class a good kicking. There is no doubt such a kicking is well-deserved, but a vote for Ukip is like kicking yourself in the face.

Maybe you think, like Ukip candidate James Elgar that Asian boys ‘groom and rape underage white girls, stab and rob innocent old white people, bomb innocent white people.’ Or maybe you want to expatriate legal immigrants, including those who were born here, an aspiration shared by 51 percent of Ukip voters.

If so, then there isn’t much anyone can say to stop you. But if not, and if you are simply thinking of voting Ukip to give British politicians a kicking, just remember that they won’t be the only ones who feel it. If Ukip makes big gains today, all that will happen is that there will be more Ukip MEPs in Brussels biting off the hand that feeds them and picking up nice expenses cheques in the first place, as Farage and his cohorts have done.

But the real danger of today’s elections lies in the impact that a Ukip success will have on on British poltics and society, as the three political parties scramble to ‘out-Ukip’ Farage in order to stem the flow of votes and become more populist and anti-immigrationist than they already are in an attempt to address voters’ ‘concerns.’

On previous experience, they will almost certainly do this, and Ed Miliband’s pathetic attempt to ‘understand’ Ukip last week is an indication of worse to come. In effect, Ukip may have a catalytic effect and end up ‘Ukipising’ British politics and legitimising the worst instincts of the British public.

This needs to be stopped, and one way to begin it is to go out today and vote. Because if you want to give the political class a kicking, there are alternatives out there beyond the big three, and any of them would be a better choice than Ukip.